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hiveminded Yeah -- Obama could have appointed a Twinkie on his economic team and the Dow would have gotten a boost. Anything's better than the crooks we had.
Company Man
N/A —
Obama, beware of The Company you keep. John Brennan?
The problem isn’t John Brennan’s lack of credentials. He was a career intelligence operative who gets consistently strong marks for his effectiveness and intelligence from people who have worked with him. But he has a critical shortcoming: his completely ambiguous and inconsistent views about the CIA’s use of torture and torture by proxy as techniques. As a company man, Brennan was quick to justify and support what was done.
No good. ...
Gates to Stay on as Defense Secretary; Brennan Out of CIA Running
Politics Daily —
... Brennan wrote. Brennan reportedly privately told colleagues that he opposed waterboarding terror suspect and questioned the legality of other interrogation techniques. Some blogs are bringing up past statement he has made, such as denouncing waterboarding while at the same time saying it gas bore some fruit in the War on Terror, and saying rendition - sending terror suspects to countries that have more lax torture laws than we do - is a "vital tool." Says Harper's Scott Horton: "The problem isn't John Brennan's lack of ...
No Way. No How. No Brennan
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan —
Scott Horton:
The problem isn’t John Brennan’s lack of credentials. He was a career intelligence operative who gets consistently strong marks for his effectiveness and intelligence from people who have worked with him. But he has a critical shortcoming: his completely ambiguous and inconsistent views about the CIA’s use of torture and torture by proxy as techniques. As a company man, Brennan was quick to justify and support what was done. As an “independent” analyst for broadcast journalists, he also provided support and cover for practices from ...
Score One for Sullivan/Greenwald
The Anonymous Liberal —
... some quarters" of his role in the Bush administration. Though I've written in quasi-defense of selecting someone like Brennan to be DNI, I am relieved and encouraged by the way this has played out. In reading Brennan's letter, you'd think that the prospect of his appointment had ignited some sort of media firestorm. The reality, though, is that the most prominent opponents of his appointment were bloggers, in particular Glenn Greenwald, Andrew Sullivan, and Scott Horton. The mainstream media has barely touched the subject. The fact that people ...
Obama Asks Gates to Stay at Pentagon
Taylor Marsh —
... for consideration at C.I.A. or
D.N.I. Scott Horton
runs down the problems with Brennan, whose stance on enhanced interrogations,
what you and I would call torture, don’t exactly pass the Geneva Conventions
test. Also see ...
Brennan Out of Consideration for CIA, What Now?
Daily Kos —
... reports, John Brennan--a top CIA aide to George Tenet during most of the Bush administration--has withdrawn his name from consideration for CIA director. Which is good news all around. Though Brennan pettily and disingenuously writes in his letter to Obama that he wasn't part of the "decisionmaking" in the agency's torture policies, he remained an apologist for it. As Harper's Scott Horton points out ...
Brennan Is Out
Obsidian Wings —
... Obama's top adviser on intelligence, took his name out of the running Tuesday for any intelligence position in the new administration.
Brennan wrote in a Nov. 25 letter to Obama that he did not want to be a distraction. His potential appointment as CIA director has raised a firestorm in liberal blogs that associate him with the Bush administration's interrogation, detention and rendition policies."
This really is a victory for Glenn Greenwald, Scott Horton, Andrew Sullivan, Digby, and the other bloggers who protested Brennan's ...
Did Brennan Withdraw His Name from Consideration for CIA Post Before Obama Could Withdraw it For Him?
Political Punch —
... the U.S. are "too daunting" and the role of the CIA "too critical for there to be any distraction from the vital work that lays ahead." Stephanie Cutter, a spokeswoman for the Obama transition team, said on Tuesday: "The president-elect accepts his decision to withdraw from consideration for a position in the intelligence community but he is grateful for John’s continuing assistance as a valuable member of our transition team." Critics included human rights attorney Scott Horton, who wrote this week that nominating Brennan "would draw heavy fire from some of Obama’s most ...
